Lesbian Modernism: Censorship, Sexuality and Genre Fiction

Elizabeth English

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2014

Lesbian Modernism

Censorship, Sexuality and Genre Fiction

Elizabeth English

In the series Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernist Culture

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748693740

Overview
Contents

About this book

The first book-length study to explore the importance of genre for the body of literature we call lesbian modernism

Elizabeth English explores the aesthetic dilemma prompted by the censorship of Radclyffe Hall’s novel The Well of Loneliness in 1928. Faced with legal and financial reprisals, women writers were forced to question how they might represent lesbian identity and desire. Modernist experimentation has often been seen as a response to this problem, but English breaks new ground by arguing that popular genre fictions offered a creative strategy against the threat of detection and punishment. Her study examines a range of responses to this dilemma by offering illuminating close readings of fantasy, crime, and historical fictions written by both mainstream and modernist authors. English introduces hitherto neglected women writers from diverse backgrounds and draws on archival material examined here for the first time to remap the topography of 1920s-1940s lesbian literature and to reevaluate the definition of lesbian modernism.

Key Features:

Rethinks the lesbian modernist project to demonstrate that genre fiction not only influenced modernist writers such as Woolf and Stein but also found its way into their ostensibly highbrow work
Brings to light hitherto neglected mainstream writers working in popular genres who contributed to the lesbian modernist aesthetic
Situates Katharine Burdekin within the context of lesbian modernism for the first time, employing hitherto unseen archive material (including letters and manuscripts)
Divided into three broad multi-author genres (fantasy, historical and detective fictions), the study covers popular fictions such as utopian writing, the supernatural, historical biography, historical romance, and the classic country-house crime novel

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Series Editors’ Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: Foul Minds and Foul Mouths – Censorship and a Turn to Genre Fiction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: Fantasy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
Part II: History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Part III: Crime Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
Coda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	194
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 224
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: November 11, 2014
ISBN: 9780748693740